NFL anticipated to approve gamers in ’28 Video games, however ought to it?

IF AND WHEN NFL gamers are permitted to signify Group USA in flag soccer throughout the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Minnesota Vikings operating again Aaron Jones wish to convey a easy message:

Signal me up.

“Flag soccer gamers could also be upset at me for this, however sure, I might completely adore it,” Jones stated. “Each different sport will get a chance to win a gold medal, and should you’re not serving your nation within the navy, I really feel like that is the opposite highest honor that you may signify your nation in.”

Jones and most of the key stakeholders wanted to make this a actuality have already made their positions clear on the thought of NFL gamers collaborating within the Olympic debut of flag soccer.

“Man, that notion of with the ability to signify your nation, whether or not you are going to signify Group USA, Asia, Mexico — no matter — that is the last word dream,” NFL government vice chairman of soccer operations Troy Vincent stated.

Amongst gamers, Jones is joined by many — together with Kansas Metropolis Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill — who’ve expressed curiosity.

“It is an ideal alternative to get everyone enjoying one sport, representing America as an entire, and hopefully get a gold medal,” New England Patriots receiver Stefon Diggs instructed ESPN.

The prospect even has assist amongst house owners.

“That is thrilling and optimistic for the NFL,” Dallas Cowboys proprietor Jerry Jones stated. “I can see that and establish with that actual fast… I am a fan of what the Olympics can do for curiosity in your sport.”

With a lot frequent floor, it might sound as if NFL gamers suiting up within the Los Angeles Video games could be a slam dunk. In actuality, it should require the events to navigate many thorny points.

When NFL house owners convene in Minnesota this week for his or her spring assembly, they’re anticipated to approve a decision launched final Thursday that goals to make this a actuality. They vote Tuesday, and the decision must be authorized by at the least 24 of the 32 workforce house owners.

Most of the ultimate particulars stay a great distance off and are but to be negotiated between the NFL, the gamers’ union and Olympic governing our bodies. For now, the proposal requires the six collaborating nations (which haven’t but been recognized) to pick a most of 1 NFL participant every, with Group USA anticipated to be capped at 10 gamers.

“I feel total, [flag football in the Olympics is] an amazing factor,” Inexperienced Bay Packers normal supervisor Brian Gutenkunst stated. “I would adore it if we stored the NFL gamers out of it.”

However the NFL is all-in on flag soccer, with the league having way back decided it’s a key to solidifying the following technology’s curiosity in soccer. The NFL is partnering with flag packages throughout the nation to assist progress of the sport, together with the speedy progress of ladies flag soccer on the youth and highschool stage. The league can be within the early phases of growing separate skilled flag leagues for women and men, with preliminary investor bids already submitted.

Flag competitors within the Olympics can be key to the NFL’s efforts to increase curiosity within the recreation globally, with the league’s worldwide efforts turning into extra of a central focus. The NFL is scheduled to play seven worldwide video games this yr, together with its first regular-season video games in Dublin, Berlin and Madrid. Having flag soccer as a part of the world’s grandest worldwide sporting occasion is seen as a serious win by the NFL, which strongly supported the trouble so as to add flag soccer to the Olympics.

However that doesn’t imply getting NFL gamers to that stage will come with out obstacles.

“It is undoubtedly a piece in progress,” Vincent stated. “For the [teams], how do you get to a spot the place you are comfy, ensuring the entire safeguards are in place, within the occasion that one in all your athletes possibly places his hand as much as probably take part?

“Ensuring that we, the league, golf equipment, gamers, gamers’ affiliation, everybody’s taking the entire proper precautionary measures within the occasion that somebody needs to go signify the nation, that’s nonetheless a piece in progress.”

IF OWNERS VOTE to move the decision, which sources instructed ESPN’s Adam Schefter is anticipated, it merely authorizes the NFL to work towards the objectives outlined within the proposal, with all future agreements topic to the end result of negotiations with the NFL Gamers Affiliation and the assorted Olympic governing our bodies.

Harm safety would, maybe, be the most important impediment.

Presently, accidents that happen away from official workforce capabilities are categorised as “non-football accidents,” and groups aren’t required to pay a participant’s wage whereas he recovers from one. However the decision proposes harm safety and salary-cap reduction stemming from an harm to a participant collaborating within the Olympics.

The league would additionally search an settlement with Olympic officers to make sure that NFL minimal requirements are met for medical staffs and enjoying fields used for competitions.

Flag soccer will not be as harmful as sort out soccer. That is why the NFL has moved to a flag-football mannequin within the Professional Bowl Video games in recent times. However the prospect of accidents stays actual and should be accounted for upfront.

Because of this, there is not common settlement that this can be a good concept.

Gutenkunst, for instance, cited “the chance” of harm because the factor that gave him pause.

Insurance coverage preparations will probably be a serious part of resolving this situation. The decision states a number of league-wide insurance coverage insurance policies could be hunted for harm safety.

In fact, overlaying monetary losses from an harm is simply a part of the equation. It doesn’t, for example, make shedding a key participant any much less painful in terms of changing him on the sector.

“We would like the very best well being and security requirements, similar to we do in a [NFL] recreation,” stated Jeff Miller, NFL government vice chairman for communications, public affairs and coverage. “So, we wish to discuss to the gamers affiliation concerning the fields, we wish to discuss to the governing physique and others who could also be within the enterprise of regulating that to ensure that we get that proper.”

To not be ignored right here is the potential battle of Olympic duties with the NFL’s offseason and coaching camp schedule. NFL coaching camps happen in late July, and the ’28 Video games are scheduled for July 14-30.

The NBA, NHL and Main League Baseball way back discovered methods by which their gamers may take part in worldwide competitions, so there are blueprints for the NFL to observe.

However it’s a brand new idea for soccer, which has a three-phase offseason program that often begins earlier than the draft in April and lasts till mid-June. The decision in entrance of homeowners is imprecise on this entrance, saying solely that “flag-football video games and associated occasions” needs to be scheduled in a method “that doesn’t unreasonably battle with an NFL participant’s league and membership commitments.”

What which means, particularly, stays to be seen. The present expectation of nationwide workforce hopefuls underneath USA Soccer — the game’s governing physique in the USA — is that they attend the Group USA coaching camp previous to worldwide competitions. That is when evaluations are made and the ultimate roster and alternates chosen. How all of this could dovetail with the NFL’s offseason exercise schedule and preseason camps stays unclear.

When the subject was broached not too long ago with Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh, he wasn’t precisely thrilled about the potential of his dual-threat quarterback, two-time Most Useful Participant Lamar Jackson, being absent for parts of an offseason.

“I am afraid I’ve a quarterback that’d most likely be fairly good at [flag football], so, no, I am not that enthusiastic about that in all honesty,” Harbaugh stated. “I consider in America. I need gold medals, however …”

The NFL may modify its schedule, because the NHL has agreed to do by instituting an Olympic break throughout the 2026 and 2030 Winter Video games. However it’s unclear whether or not such an answer has been broached.

Cleveland Browns normal supervisor Andrew Berry introduced some levity to the controversy, addressing the hypothetical of a star participant like Mahomes collaborating within the ’28 Video games. Go for it, Berry successfully stated, hinting that Mahomes’ absence would not be best for AFC powerhouse Kansas Metropolis — however probably helpful for opponents.

“I am maybe slightly bit skeptical that possibly we’ll see the Patrick Mahomeses of the world skip [training camp], as a lot as I would be very in favor of that, if he is listening,” Berry stated. “Skip coaching camp and do the Olympics.

“I feel it stays to be seen what that appears like. However I need that to achieve success for our sport.”

MEDICAL RESEARCHERS HAVE solely not too long ago begun amassing information on the well being impression and harm dangers of flag soccer. A 2021 examine led by a doctor on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) indicated that head accidents in flag soccer are about 15 occasions much less frequent than sort out soccer at comparable age ranges.

The comparatively nonviolent nature of flag soccer promotes a notion of low danger for a number of the NFL’s most essential decision-makers.

“[Injuries] would not be a difficulty for me,” Jerry Jones stated. “Timing, availability, conflicts [would be]. However I would not be involved with accidents. Not with flag.”

Ought to Jones be extra involved? Dr. Robert Parisien, orthopedic sports activities medication surgeon from New York Mt. Sinai Well being System, coauthored a 2025 examine analyzing 10 years of flag soccer harm information pulled from the Nationwide Digital Harm Surveillance System. The examine discovered 2,508 accidents attributed to flag soccer over that interval that had been critical sufficient to be offered in hospital emergency rooms, and it decided that the most typical accidents for adults had been to fingers, probably as they prolonged to seize flags, in addition to sprains and strains.

“There is definitely danger of harm in flag soccer,” Parisien stated, “and that is type of one of many misnomers, that flag soccer has a really low danger of harm to it. Head collisions and trauma could also be much less in flag soccer than involved soccer, however it nonetheless happens. You see some muscle strains, tendon strains, however it’s actually robust to extrapolate and see what a younger NFL-caliber athlete might expertise.

Jalen Ramsey displaying no mercy to Tyreek Hill on the Professional Bowl 😂

🎥: @NFL pic.twitter.com/178hLtjlnY

— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) February 5, 2023

“As a result of I’ll say that in flag soccer, particularly should you’re enjoying it aggressively and also you’re that stage of athlete, you are enjoying on the aggressive stage that they’ll play this at, they’re definitely in danger for head trauma, and completely strains and sprains like standard. However they’re in danger for concussions. They’re in danger for ligamentous harm. The most typical mechanism, for instance, for an ACL rupture is a noncontact twisting harm. That is not contact-related.”

The NFL wants solely to return in its personal historical past to search out the nightmare state of affairs. Patriots operating again Robert Edwards suffered a catastrophic left knee harm whereas enjoying a sanctioned flag soccer recreation on a seaside in Hawaii throughout Professional Bowl week in February 1999. Edwards tore all three ligaments within the knee, partially tore a fourth and likewise ruptured an artery after leaping to catch a move. He missed three full seasons, returned for a short stint with the Miami Dolphins in 2002 and finally retired.

Edwards’ plight is an excessive instance and will have been exacerbated by sand that will not be current on the Olympics. However Parisien referenced it as a reminder of the vary of danger.

“I am certain in his thoughts he thought, ‘Nicely, I am solely enjoying flag soccer. I’m most likely going to be tremendous. I am going to simply go and have some enjoyable, proper?'” Parisien stated. “Do not get me flawed. Personally, I feel it is great that these athletes wish to compete in flag soccer underneath our flag and signify our nation. I feel that is implausible. I personally suppose that is a beautiful factor that they wish to do.

“However as a doctor, I’ve to say that after all they’re vulnerable to harm.”

DARRELL “HOUSH” DOUCETTE is likely one of the world’s premier flag gamers. A quarterback on Group USA and the longest-tenured member of the nationwide workforce, Doucette was among the many gamers known as upon by the NFL to offer gamers a crash course on flag soccer earlier than current Professional Bowls.

Doucette does not have the identify recognition of the NFL’s greatest stars, however he nonetheless believes he’s simply as well-suited to play for a gold medal as most of the greatest gamers in professional soccer. He welcomes the competitors — simply not the assumptions concerning the finish end result.

“We simply do not suppose they are going to have the ability to stroll on the sector and make the Olympic workforce due to the identify,” he instructed The Guardian final yr. “They nonetheless must go on the market and compete.”

He is obtained a degree.

The thought of NFL gamers competing within the Olympics may be thrilling, however there are a slew of gamers who’ve been competing on the worldwide stage in flag soccer — and, within the case of Group USA, dominating — for years. The U.S. males have received the previous 5 world championships. The ladies have received the previous three.

The NFL has gamers with ties to greater than 70 nations, so there’s a lengthy checklist of countries that gamers may probably signify within the Olympics. However for American gamers and people from nations with an extended historical past of competing, there needs to be no assumption that NFL gamers will probably be greatest suited to what’s a really completely different recreation.

“On the finish of the day, I really feel like I am higher than Patrick Mahomes due to my IQ of the sport.”

-US Flag soccer QB Darrell Doucette

pic.twitter.com/G2gKTWHctj

— Barstool Sports activities (@barstoolsports) August 21, 2024

“There’s some refined variations between sort out soccer and flag soccer, and I am not going to imagine that sort out soccer gamers are the perfect possibility, to be fairly sincere with you,” Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin stated. “We’ll see. It will be thrilling and fascinating for me. Looks like dimension is much less of a think about flag soccer. We’d have … a bunch of 140-pound guys operating round on the market. I do not know.”

Presently, there are numerous necessities set forth by USA Soccer that gamers should undergo earlier than ascending to the U.S. nationwide workforce (every nationwide workforce can develop its personal course of). Athletes who advance obtain an invitation to the USA Soccer trials, the place the pool is trimmed to 60 gamers. These gamers advance to the USA Soccer coaching camp, the place the ultimate roster — 10 gamers for the 2028 Olympics — will probably be chosen.

That is a probably prolonged course of, maybe complicating NFL gamers’ capability to pursue a roster spot. However a streamlined pathway for NFL gamers could possibly be applied in the event that they obtain approval to compete.

“If NFL gamers are eligible, we’re prepared to assist create alternatives for these athletes to showcase their expertise and be included on the nationwide workforce,” stated Scott Hallenbeck, CEO and government director of USA Soccer. “USA Soccer’s final aim is to convey house two gold medals in flag soccer, and we’re dedicated to exploring each path to construct the strongest Group USA potential.”

However for NFL gamers to be part of that effort, a labyrinth of points should first be navigated. And the events aren’t fairly there simply but.

“How will we go about it, crossing all of the T’s, dotting all of the I’s, ensuring everybody’s comfy?” Vincent stated. “There’s nonetheless some work to do for certain.”

Brooke Pryor, Daniel Oyefusi, Rob Demovsky and Jamison Hensley contributed to this report.